HUFFINGTON POST 03/13/13 By Michael Shank The District of Columbia’s poverty problem received much-needed attention recently with reporting on how D.C. General has become a home for hundreds of homeless parents and children. The over-crowded and abandoned hospital-turned-homeless shelter has become a testament to D.C. benevolence, ushering in an outpouring […]
WASHINGTON POST 03/13/13 By Michael Shank The District of Columbia’s poverty problem received much-needed attention recently with this paper’s reporting on how DC General has become a home for hundreds of homeless parents and children. The over-crowded and abandoned hospital-turned-homeless shelter has become a testament to DC benevolence, ushering in […]
WASHINGTON POST 02/27/13 By Michael Shank Anacostia’s main fitness center on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue closed this month due to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent, and the community is now left wanting in the gym’s absence. D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) had moved to […]
WASHINGTON POST 02/22/13 By Michael Shank At the corner of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Ave, in Anacostia, a totem pole will rise from a plain patch of vacant ground this spring. It may seem odd that a Native American totem pole was the piece of public […]
DIANE RAVITCH 02/18/13 By Diane Ravitch During Michelle Rhee’s book tour, the nation will hear a lot of claims about the dramatic changes she imposed on the D.C. schools, which qualifies her to export her ideas to the rest of the nation. What should other states and cities seek to […]
WASHINGTON POST 02/04/13 By Michael Shank As Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated last month with community service ads and intimations in President Obama’s inauguration speech, I wondered, as I do every year, how the nation can commemorate a leader so disingenuously. We will likely do the same during […]
AL JAZEERA 12/23/12 By Michael Shank Now that the National Rifle Association is playing hard ball by suggesting today that we provide armed guards in every school across America at a cost of nearly $6bn, it is quite clear that this conversation has gotten completely out of hand. The idea […]
WASHINGTON POST 12/05/12 By Michael Shank and Lindsay Schubiner D.C. Council member Marion Barry’s ex-offender bill, which is on the city’s legislative hopper and addresses discrimination by granting employment protections, is needed not only in the District but also across America. It is needed for an estimated 65 million Americans, […]
WASHINGTON POST 11/28/12 By Michael Shank There is much to laud in the recently released film “Lincoln,” and Participant Media, which produced the film, points a principled way forward for fellow filmmakers, and their audiences, who care about social action. Participant Media is relatively new to Hollywood, but it has […]
BET 11/16/12 By Cord Jefferson The nation’s capital now has the worst racial achievement gaps in the country when it comes to educating children. A new op-ed in the Huffington Post dredges up a well known but important topic of conversation: the growing and increasingly entrenched disparities between whites and […]